I have tried and tried but as the years have passed, IT has gotten stronger and stronger, and I have no weapons left.

IT being the thick rainforest that inhabits my daughter’s head. For the past several years, I have been engaged in an epic battle to tame my daughter’s hair.

I should have known that this was coming on the day I gave birth. The Tech Guru, who was standing down at the end of the bed as far away from me as possible after his attempts to soothe me had resulted in my baring fangs, saw her as her head began to appear. His first words?

“All I see is hair!”

And out she came with a wondrous crown of thick straight hair that whorled around her head like a hurricane.

By 3 months, the straight hair had begun to twist and flex and bend into cute tendrils.

By the time she was age 2, washing and detangling caused shouting, screams and tears at bath time.

I think SHE may have cried too.

Here we are. She is 8. I have been detangling for the LAST TWO DAYS. I began braiding it some time ago but frankly, after 2 days the braids look fuzzy and untidy and the swimming causes them to mat.

It is time, I declared to her a few days ago, to begin getting thee to a hairdresser.

My mother gave up when I was 7, which was when she took ME to a hairdresser to relax my hair, which was the mode du jour of dealing with hair as thick as mine.

I stopped relaxers 2 years ago and have no intention of doing that to Punksin but GOD only knows a blowout or two could make life easier now and then.

The question is, when? Every other day she’s in the pool. If we blow out or set her hair today, it’s going right back to curly tomorrow and I’ve wasted $30.

Whatever happens, from here on out I will be overseeing her hair while someone ELSE does the manual labor. I’m freaking exhausted.